One of Our Dreams May be Coming True!

For over 11 years, I've had a dream of moving to Italy. This was spurred on by a study abroad trip I made in January, 1999. Like most college students, we were based in Rome, but spent weekends traveling to Naples, Abruzzo National Park, Florence, Frascati, and several little villages in between. I fell in love with Italy at that time...

Books and movies like, "Under the Tuscan Sun" only reinforced my desire to one day buy a home there and move!

I took a couple of trips back to Italy and got to play tourist in the northwest regions as well as Venice. I was able to make my 4th trip there in 2007 when Tony and I spent Christmas week in a small apartment in the tiny hilltown of Trevi, in the region of Umbria. It was magical. There were no other tourists there, nothing was in English, and life felt like it hadn't changed much since the 13th century when the village was originally built. That's when Tony also got on board with this "dream"!

Fast forward to 2010. We're living in Orange County, and Tony is loving his job at an International non-profit while I'm enjoying staying home with our baby boy. We started talking about vacation 2011 (because, I'm obsessed with Tripadvisor and any form of vacation planning). We had planned to go to Cinque Terra since neither of us had ever been, and are desperate to go! Then, we started questioning if this would be the responsible thing to do... Mainly because the housing market is still quite volatile here in California, and we thought it might be smart to invest in another rental property nearby, sit on it a few years, and then sell when the market takes an upswing. Because of this, we decided that perhaps Cinque Terra would have to wait another year or two and we would take a cruise (cheap for Cali residents) or trek down to Latin America (also cheap), which we both love.

But then, a lightbulb went off. What about a home in which we could spend part of the summer and winter holidays that could also be used as a rental property IN ITALY? And, the rest is sort of just falling into place!!!

After hours and hours and hours of exhilarating research, we have found a small home in the tiny village of Palata on the South-Eastern coast of Italy, about 20 minutes from the Adriatic Sea and the city of Vasto.

I've been waking up each morning at 6am to Skype with the realtors, building technicians, lawyers, etc., at the real estate agency we're using. I'm beside myself with excitement. It's hard for me to think of anything else! This is pretty evident from glancing at the table near my reading chair!

The home isn't in need of any renovations a la Bramasole, but it does need some paint, cosmetic work, and updating in the kitchen, bathroom, etc. I should add now that we haven't even SEEN this property in person! We are moving forward with all the paperwork, sight unseen, but will be traveling there in early September to view the property and close the sale.

It's not as crazy as it sounds...The property is very very inexpensive because Molise and Abruzzo are not yet discovered and commercialized like the regions of Tuscany, Lazio or Umbria. The day I found the property was the same day I was having my parents and my brother over to have dinner with us. When they heard about the possibility, they were in! So, we're purchasing this home in a 3-way partnership with my parents and my brother. Each of us with a 33.3% stake in it, which definitely brings the risk factor to a minimum.

So, let the adventure begin! I'm hoping to use this blog to track our journey towards becoming home owners in Italy, feature Italian Recipes, discuss blogs and books related to Italy, and feature photographs of Bella Italia!

Welcome to "Living La Vida Luna Italiano style!"